Robert Mueller just punched Donald Trump in the mouth again
Robert Mueller has done it again. Just a few days ago he punched Donald Trump in the mouth, politically speaking, by indicting the Russians who conspired to rig the election in his favor. It painted Trump as an illegitimate Russian puppet, and weakened him ahead of the obstruction of justice charges he’s about to face. Now Mueller has punched Trump – and his entire team – in the mouth again, this time in criminal terms.
Today we learned that Mueller has obtained an indictment and an apparent guilty plea against a guy you’ve never heard of named Alex Van Der Zwaan. He’s an attorney who misled Trump-Russia investigators and withheld evidence against former Trump campaign adviser Rick Gates. What does this have to do with Trump and his posse? Everything. Mueller is making clear that his earlier arrest of George Papadopoulos for lying to the FBI wasn’t merely a one-off move based on a specific need to flip Papadopoulos against someone specific. Instead, Mueller is going to indict, arrest and prosecute everyone who has illegally refused to cooperate with the Trump-Russia probe.
So we’ll be looking at dozens, or perhaps hundreds, of these kinds of arrests of people you’ve never heard of, simply because they tried to mislead Trump-Russia investigators.But that’s not the point here. Based on what’s been reported over the past several months, half of Donald Trump’s White House advisers appear to have committed similar crimes. They deleted emails that they knew Mueller wanted. They plotted to tell lies to the media about Trump-Russia meetings, in the hope of throwing Mueller off. They lied on security clearance forms. These are all crimes.
Robert Mueller just sent Donald Trump’s entire current and former staff, including his attorneys, into a panic. Right now they’re all reassessing their actions over the past year with regard to the Trump-Russia investigation, trying to figure out if they’re about to get arrested for their efforts to help Trump obstruct the probe. Some will run to cut plea deals. Some will resign. Some will remain on the job, but will be focused entirely on protecting themselves instead of helping Trump. This is the second bodyblow that Robert Mueller has landed on Donald Trump in just a few days.
